Bo was up on his feet even though his legs still ached terribly from the 'horse' ride, his head also had a strange burning sensation inside of it that was quickly fading away. He looked at the monsters bounding towards them and moved to block Zhu'er from sight as she continued sleeping. The beasts were getting closer. Close enough that Bo could see the warped fleshless heads with lolling wormy tongues. They looked like people whose faces had been caught in painful contortions and then stretched to give the impression of a snout.
They had come close enough that Bo could hear a raspy mix of a bark and a moan coming from them.
"I've never seen those kind of things before," Khenbish observed nonchalantly, "and I've poked around the Seven Arms Tower!"
"You're really calm about this," Bo muttered, his hand drifting down to the sword. But his fingers hesitated. A dark blue spark hovered in the air for a moment in front of Rui Yifu, it hung for a moment before it shot off like an arrow into one of the creatures heads. The creature was knocked off its feet and toppled over several times while its companions continued their run. Bo watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as the beast got back up, shaking its head like a wet dog... and then its head was abruptly crushed, splattering sap and chunks of roots everywhere. It then limply collapsed one last time.
Tiger Hunter whistled, "I've never seen anything like that before."
Another blue spark formed, "it's not easy for me to do anymore." Rui Yifu said. He launched it at the closest running creature. "It's much less tiring than I thought it would be."
"What is it?" Tiger Hunter asked, "you know, most guys I see from the Four Kingdoms use talismans and stuff. Not funny tiny statues of bald guys."
"That's because he's a fish," Bo answered while watching another creature's head splatter like a thrown overripe fruit.
"A shark," Rui Yifu corrected sharply, throwing two more sparks. "We use focuses over talismans."
"Is he a mermaid then?" Tiger Hunter looked at Bo, "can he cry pearls?"
"No." Another monster's head burst.
Bo moved to stand beside Rui Yifu, who was concentrating on the thinning pack still. The blue spark was suspended between the two floating little stone-like monks, their tiny eyes were open to reveal black stones. "Can I help?" Bo asked, somewhat awkward.
"Yes. By staying away from the openings," Rui Yifu said.
Bo guessed this meant that Rui Yifu did not want to be othered so he could continue focusing. He turned around just in time to see one of the warped creatures near the other side, a few feet away from creeping under the shadow of the steles properly. Its long lolling tongue was snaking out quickly from its mouth straight to Zhu'er. Bo pointed and opened his mouth in a shout, but Khenbish had already leapt to his feet and slammed down a short thick blade onto the tongue, syrupy blood spurted out in thick globs as the tongue writhed on the ground and the creature wailed in pained rage. Tiger Hunter shrieked something Bo could not understand, trying to kick the twitching thing away. Both the horse and the horse-thing were neighing in distress, and Idony woke up just in time to add her own screaming as the dismembered tongue continued to try wriggling to her. Bo ran over and grabbed the tongue, ignoring its slimy texture to lob it as far away from everyone as he could.
As the disgusting thing sailed from his hand, he found himself staring right into the wide eyes of its owner only a foot away from his face. Bo backed up with a yell, stumbling over his own feet and the sword clattering to the ground as the beast lunged forward.
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Its hand-like paw entered the shadow of the steles. Abruptly an earthen hand emerged from between Bo's ankles, grabbing the beast in a grip swathed in strange black flame and dragging it down against the ground. The dirt turned soft, the beast flailed desperately as it was rapidly sucked into the earth. Then it vanished. Another one that had been lurking close to the back ran up close to the edge of the shadow, and was greeted by a dozen more hands emerging from the earth, pulling its twisted form downwards as well. It shrieked, and for a moment Bo thought he heard a woman's voice from it.
"...I... I guess that's why these things don't usually come close..." Khenbish wheezed, having moved to calm his horse down.
Bo looked over at Rui Yifu, who had not moved from his spot, but the ground at the other side of the stele's opening was a small field of crushed skulls. A few of the other beasts remained, having turned tail to run. He remembered, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, Rui Yifu had previously summoned similar hands from the earth. But these ones had risen on their own, and remained under the red light of the moon slowly swaying like flowers in the breeze.
He felt a sick sense of unease deep in his stomach, finding the sheltering steles more akin to a tomb.
"That's..." Rui Yifu breathed deeply, getting to his knees, "that's... that's interesting."
Bo grabbed the pale faced Zhu'er and hauled both himself and her over to Rui Yifu's side. "That-those hands! Those... you made them before, right?"
"I summoned some once, yes," Rui Yifu said, nodding as he looked at the hands. "These ones though... they're just oozing with pure Black Flame. I've never summoned something like this before."
"Sorry to interrupt your conversation," Tiger Hunter stepped over to them both and crouched down, "but uh... this hasn't happened to us before until you three came. Can you guys leave so it doesn't happen again?"
"Tiger Hunter!" Khenbish's voice was sharp, "you can't just ask them to leave! What were you doing here besides clutching your knife anyway?" He said sternly, making the scarred woman grumble. Bo wanted to give the woman a piece of his mind as well but his eyes drifted to the still wide eyed silent child beside him and he held his tongue. "Besides, that one can fight." He pointed at Rui Yifu. "But you... why didn't you draw your sword?" He looked down at Bo quizzically.
"Because it's not mine," was the first thing that Bo sputtered out without truly thinking about it. Khenbish's confusion remained so he struggled around for the words to explain himself better. "It's... so it's not mine. It's my boss's. I'm just holding it for him, until he comes back."
"Oh?"
Bo nodded despite not feeling sure whether Liu Xie would ever come back. He looked over his shoulder back at the distant First Palace, where he could imagine Baichan waiting patiently for something. He then carefully took Zhu'er's hand and squeezed it gently and heard her take a long sigh. Then thunder rolled above.
"I hate this part," Tiger Hunter groused.
Dust and dirt was shaken downwards and the sky's blood red color faded away like smoke, the winds carrying their own strange sighing noise that burned Bo's ears. He gritted his teeth as the others covered their ears or moaned.
By the time it passed, there was a sickly green color in the horizon, the first sign of an approaching dawn.
Rui Yifu began getting up and Bo grabbed his hand, "where are you going?" He asked.
"To get the horse ready, we should probably get going-"
Khenbish looked towards Rui Yifu, "you said you're going to that mountain right? My advice is to stick to the bridge in the marsh. Someone long ago built a wood and stone bridge through it so people can get across safely, since the waters of the marsh are treacherous and worse yet, there are beasts. Some are even escaped creations from the Seven Arms Tower."
"What is the Seven Arms Tower?" Bo asked, trying to ignore the presence of the horse-thing that Rui Yifu was coaxing back towards them after it had been frightened by the hands that continued to sway in a non-existent breeze.
Tiger Hunter leaned back against a stele, "just a place full of mad immortality seekers. And their pets. My brother and I broke out of that place a long time ago and were lucky to get out as we did."
"...Is that where we're going?" Zhu'er spoke for the first time in hours, and her voice was raspy.
"Haha, no. That's all the way in the south," Tiger Hunter laughed. "Although they do send collectors out occasionally, but they're only after 'interesting' things. They leave you alone so long as you don't get close... usually."
Bo and Zhu'er exchanged a quick look, and Bo put both his arms around the little girl to hug her, "maybe they'll be more interested in those things." He suggested hopefully as he gazed out towards the field of crushed skulls that still leaked their blood-colored sap into the earth.